1945
by TheAlabasterPhoenyx
Summary: In 1945, Albus Dumbledore defeats Gellert Grindelwald. In the Muggle world, the worst war in history ends. In which Tom Riddle Jr. is not an orphan, and his path is just slightly different. (AU) [M for mentioned abuse, and for war. Better safe than sorry.]
1. Prologue

**My first Tom Riddle story - with no intended pairing. Well, maybe later. Much, much later.**

**Disclaimer: If I owned Harry Potter, I would not be writing an AU.**

**Explanation: I am trying to stick with canon as much as possible with this - except for the major things I know I have to change (um, AU, anyone?). But the dates will all stay the same, except that Riddle's birthday (for reasons of better fitting with history) is now in 1925, not 1926.**

**Prompt: Tom Riddle stays with Merope.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

_One mistake_ it had said.

Those piercing eyes stared straight into her soul and it had poured conditions down on her like the rain, cleansing and burning and washing away both hope and despair alike, leaving nothing but a vague aching numbness where her heart used to be.

She never should have listened.

* * *

He is barely nine months old when he speaks his first words. His father is unimpressed.

Tom Riddle Sr. does not acknowledge the utterings of his infant son for another four months, when his first English word is "never."

(Merope claims his first word was 'papa,' but he refuses to indulge her silly delusions about that hissing)

* * *

At three, the boy is caught in the closet with a candle and his father's dictionary.

It is the first time he feels the sting of the birch on his flesh.

The next morning, he feels it again, because his father does not like how the welts all disappeared overnight.

* * *

When he is three and a half, he asks his mother what 'socialism' means.

He wonders how people could believe in something so idealistic.

His father smacks him with the very newspaper the boy had been reading, but there is almost a smile in his handsome eyes so the pain is not as bad as it could have been.

* * *

He asks what 'necromancy' means, a few days later, and the pain of the beating makes him forget his curiosity.

The book, however, stays hidden beneathe his mattress.

* * *

On his fourth birthday, little Tom blows out the candles on his small cake, along with every light in a hundred yard radius.

His father is so furious when he gets home that his son ends up not being able to sit for a week.

It is the bruise on his mother's jaw that makes his young heart ache, though.

* * *

His tutor does not like how the little boy stares at him like he can see into his soul.

But he dare not complain to the boy's father, because the scholar is well aware of his own silliness in worrying about such a small thing. His charge is quite brilliant, too, and no teacher would ever pass up the opportunity to instruct such a talented pupil.

It is simply strange, that is all, that his old wound should hurt so much whenever the child is in a particularly bad mood.

* * *

Tom Riddle Sr., Esq. returns home after a particularly trying day advising an elderly widow to a house practically teeming with anxiety.

It seems that his son had been found with a snake in his bed, not unlike a certain Hellenistic hero, though this time the boy was happily playing, not strangling them.

He should probably feel remorse as he cleans his rod of blood, but all he can feel is a vague sort of irritation that the servants will have to be replaced, again, and his wife will be unable to accompany him to the dinner tomorrow night.

* * *

He is five when he runs away for the first time.

His father locks the door.

* * *

A few days later, young Tom sits silently in the parlor, staring at the front door for his father to return home.

His mother nearly faints when she sees the stains on his clothing, but she has the presence of mind to burn the rags before her husband returns.

The boy goes without dinner for two days, and his rear hurts for a week after that, but there is a darkness to his eyes that never really goes away.

(Merope wonders what it is he saw there, when he scampered off to stain his clothes with filth and blood)

* * *

The boy has just passed his fifth summer when he asks his mother about his grandparents.

_Not Father's parents_, he clarifies, dark eyes piercing her to the bone, _we visit them every Christmas_.

He watches as his mother's face blanches and her hands begin to shake, and he does not bring the topic up again.

She keeps it from his father, he knows, because he is not on the receiving end of a birching that evening.

* * *

He is six, and the springtime is his favorite season.

It means that the days are longer, and the nights are warmer, and his mother's social engagements will be multiplying again so he can slip away from his tutor for hours at a time.

He tells no one where he goes, not even his pillow. He knows that Father would beat him senseless if he knew that his son were sneaking off to frighten the park birds with his snakes.

* * *

Tom Riddle Sr. teaches his son to swim by throwing him into the river on his parents' property.

He is rather pleased that the boy does not catch on too quickly.

* * *

It is 1932, and the boy has just turned seven.

He sits at his windowsill and watches the flickering streetlamps illuminate the frost on the glass pane. A girl on the street looks up at his window, ragged cloak wrapped tight against the chill.

Her face is warped by the glass.

He watches, fascinated, as she drops to the side of his fenced property and shivers.

She does not stop shaking until the sunrise.

His father does not notice the urchin's body when he leaves for work.

(Merope notices)

* * *

He is seven years and four months old when he decides he wishes to be a dragon.

Father immediately punishes him for entertaining such an impractical thought.

Mother cradles her own bruised arm and watches her baby through the cracked door as he stares silently, intently, at a writhing shadow on his bedroom floor.

* * *

His mother asks him the next day, after her husband has left for work, what he meant by his comment the night before.

He watches her with unnerving eyes and says _once, you said Father was your knight in shining armor_.

* * *

He is eight when the birch rod bursts into flames in Tom Riddle Sr.'s hands.

It takes a few days to find a replacement.

(Merope thinks she might have imagined the cold look in her son's eyes)

* * *

The replacement crumbles to ashes a week later.

His father decides Tom Jr. is old enough for a proper cane.

(Merope is almost afraid for her son. She knows she did not imagine it)

* * *

The boy is eight when he runs away for the second time.

His mother is distraught, and his father is highly irritated.

He does not return for more than a month, after the summer has turned to autumn.

It is the first time Tom Riddle Sr. does not beat him for disobedience.

(Merope forbade him to touch her baby, and there must have been something reminiscent of her father and her brother in her bearing, because he did not protest)

* * *

His eighth Christmas finds Tom Riddle Jr. sitting in the graveyard of Little Hangleton.

It is so different from London – cleaner, quieter, simpler. The dead there do not have gravestones, he thinks.

His mother discovers him there, by his great-grandfather's sarcophagus, and she does not drag him back into the manor house. Instead, she sits beside him and they watch the stars come out together.

Neither say anything about the sudden unnatural, comfortable warmth in the December air.

* * *

When he is nine, he asks his mother about the rioting because he knows his father would never approve of the curiosity.

In a rare moment of conspiracy, she says _that_ conflict will never concern him, but she refuses to tell him why.

Father removes them from their vacation early anyway.

* * *

Merope Riddle gives her son a violin for his tenth birthday.

He is so happy with his gift that even his father smiles at the boy.

She does not know when he learned to play, but that night her son supplies such lively music that she dances with her husband in their parlor for the first time in forever.

* * *

The next morning, her ten-year-old embraces her so tightly she does not think she can breathe.

Once he has gone off to his lessons, she is startled to realize it is the first time her son has hugged her in years, since before he knew how to make the shadows writhe like agony.

* * *

It is 1936, and the boy knows something is wrong with his mother.

He has never lived through a war before, but she has, and they can both smell it coming. He does not quite remember when it began, but her dresses have stopped coming so frequently in packages from Paris. She says nothing to him, but he knows that she is worried.

It is funny, he thinks. He has never met a German, yet they are all he can think about now.

* * *

Tom Riddle Sr. is not a cruel man, just a cold one. He never meant to hurt his son, but when he sees him with that _snake_ in his bedroom, _again_, his self-control simply snaps.

He does not stop to think about the date – December 31st of 1936 – nor about the neatly-wrapped present waiting on the parlor chair. He does not even, in his rage, stop to get the rattan cane, but simply uses his heavy cherry wood walking stick with the ivory grip – the nice one, carved like a horse head.

He only stops once his arm grows tired, and by then he is not only feeling sick at the boy but also at himself.

His son's penetrating eyes only make the disgust worse.

He would never admit it, but sometimes he thinks Tom Riddle Jr. knows him better than he knows himself.

* * *

It is four months after the incident with his father, and the cane has not made a reappearance since.

He sits with his mother in the parlor, reading a book of French poetry as she surveys her own penny-novel – which is a testament to the fact that she knows her husband will not be home until late tonight – when he decides to ask the question.

_Mother, why is my middle name Marvolo? _She looks up at him, startled, face flushed and ashen at once, and he understands that it is part of the past his father has beaten him for asking about.

But his father is not here, just his mother, and he wishes to know where he comes from.

_It was my father's name_, and he knows by the way her eyes dart to her hands, clenched on the book in her lap, that she feels about her father the way he does about his.

_I will remember, Mother_. There is a glint in his eye.

(Merope wonders sometimes if her boy is not more of a Gaunt than a Riddle)

* * *

**Thank you for reading! Please, tell me what you think. I have plans for this one, so hopefully something will get done eventually.**

**But I swear on the blood of the unicorn Quirrel snacked on in Philosopher's Stone, reviews help me write!**

**~ TheAlabasterPhoenyx**


	2. Chapter 1

**Here's the first chapter of the actual story! These will be quite short, but I'll try to post often to make up for it. (If the chapters are short, it leaves less pressure on me to write something substantial, and I can go into the story with a light heart :) Don't worry, the story itself will be substantial, and I might end up combining chapters once I'm done.**

* * *

**Disclaimer: I do not own _Harry Potter_. No matter how much I wish that I did.**

* * *

He can hear the screaming, even under his pillow. It does no good to try to block it out. All he can do is grit his teeth and suffer through it.

There is a _thump_ and a soft cry of pain, and Tom tastes blood as he bites down on his cheek to keep himself safely tucked away under the covers.

He tries not to pay too close attention to the words his father is shouting, but some of them filter through his shuttered mind anyway.

_Swore_

_Your father_

_I tried_

_Simply cannot_

_Never_

His mother is quieter, softer – trying to calm her husband down, even now, even after he has hit her (thrown her against the wall, probably. He has learned to decipher these kinds of things by now). Sometimes Tom thinks his mother is the insane one in the house, even living with a violent husband and a disturbed son.

At least, that is what the servants whisper, when they think he cannot hear them.

Tom Riddle Sr.'s voice drops, and the boy cannot hear their argument anymore. He thinks that this is worse, in a way. He does not like not knowing what is going on.

The noises stop, and he cannot tell if his parents are reconciled (probably not) or just too tired to continue (Mother does tend to give up rather easily), but he lies awake for another few hours after that, unable to keep his mind from running around and over and through the possibilities.

_Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_.

He always knew he could not be the only one.

* * *

**Please review, my lovely readers! Next chapter will be up in a few days.**

**~ TheAlabasterPhoenyx**


	3. Chapter 2

"Enter," the deep voice of his father would have sent shivers down Tom's spine, if he had not long since decided that fear was for the lower classes.

"Yes, father," Tom keeps his bearing demure, voice low, eyes on Tom Sr.'s desk and not his face. He may not be afraid, but he is not stupid.

"Your mother," his voice is acerbic, and Tom almost bristles because his mother is in the room – silent – with them, "and I have decided that you will be allowed to attend this _school_."

If he were a lesser boy, Tom would have grinned in delight. However, as he is simply Tom, the news brings a small glow to his chest but no change to his outer appearance except a bow of gratitude.

"Thank you, father."

The older man barks a laugh, derisive and short, and his son's fingers twitch at the sound.

"Do not think that I in any way condone your – _abilities_. I am merely allowing you to attend for the sake of my own sanity. You will be much safer there, with others of your _kind_, than here."

_Safer_. _No_, Tom thinks, _not _my_ safety._

He does not respond to his father's comment, but his mother steps forward to place a gentle hand on her son's shoulder.

"Come, Tom. We should talk, you and I." She does not glance back at her husband, but Tom notices that she flinches when he snorts.

* * *

**Review!**

**~ TheAlabasterPhoenyx**


	4. Chapter 3

"You mean you _knew_?"

His tone is flat, hiding the anger and resentment his mother knows bubbles just below the surface in her strange boy.

She sighs, putting a hand on her son's. He stiffens, but does not pull away.

"Yes, dear. Your father –" here Tom snorts, calm mask replaced instantly – for a moment – with a great anger "- made me swear I would not encourage you." She pauses for a moment, watching him with grey eyes, infinite sadness in their depths. "He hated that I was a witch, you see. He kept hoping that if he stifled it out of you, he could have a – "

She stops talking, but Tom finishes her sentence for her.

"A normal son." His voice is still flat, but this time it has gained a world of bitterness. His mother flinches, and he feels sorry that he should put her through more pain.

"I apologize, mother." His words are soft.

"No, I apologize, Tom." She embraces him, and his eleven-year-old body is just as stiff as ever, but he does not attempt to stop her. The woman could probably count on her fingers how many hugs she had received from her son in the past five years. "I should have told you – to hell what your father said."

It is the first time Tom has ever heard his mother swear. He pulls back and watches her with startled eyes. Her face breaks into a watery smile, and for a moment he could see why his father – devilishly handsome, rich, talented Thomas Riddle, Esquire – had agreed to marriage with his mother – plain, boring, slightly divergent-eyed Merope. Her smile is the most beautiful expression he has ever seen, on anyone, even the models in the periodicals.

"I understand," he says quietly, and she sits back, suddenly serious again. There is a pang in his chest. His mother does not smile much, anymore.

There is a wealth of memory in those two simple words, and Merope Riddle feels her heart constrict in agony. She never wanted this for her son, but she never could stop her husband from doing what he thought was best. Perhaps she was just too weak to protect her son.

"Mother," his voice is fierce, like he knows what she is thinking (and who is she kidding? He probably does). "We live with him the best we can," and he knows that his mother loves his father almost to obsession, even though he cannot and never will feel the same way about Tom Riddle Sr.

Her face lightens, not so brooding or melancholy anymore.

"Come," she stands, "I have much to share with you."

* * *

**Review! (And Happy Easter, to a lot of you. Happy Passover, to some of you. Happy Spring, to all of you)**

**~ TheAlabasterPhoenyx**


	5. Chapter 4

Tom could tell that his mother is slightly perturbed at his wand choice, but she told him that she had never visited Diagon Alley for a wand before, so he hopes that she will not make too much of it.

Even he, as an uneducated 'Muggle' boy, knows that yew wood is not symbolic of a rather positive person.

But it feels so _right_ in his hand, and he cannot believe that there has been somewhere he belongs all his life just _waiting_ for him to come and grasp it.

Mother does not have the same worried look on her face at his preference of familiar, and he supposes that they all (yes, even his father, who is not with them but will probably see later) expected this. She is a beautiful adder, pale grey with black jagged markings down her spine – the last of her litter, the only one to survive this long in the store.

She tells him that her brother was bought by a man who wished to use fresh adder scales in a potion, and her mother died much the same way. She is young, only a few months since hatching, and rather tiny. He could probably fit her entire body into his fist if he wanted to.

For some reason, even though he knows she is venomous already, Tom wishes to protect this beautiful creature. It is a strange feeling, like someone poured warm honey into his chest, and the only reason he recognizes it is because he often feels this way about his mother, albeit more burning than warm.

His mother is rather happy to see the jubilant smile on her son's face as he strokes the baby snake's head, keeping her on his arm instead of in a cage.

The pair garners its fair share of strange looks, especially because of the Muggle clothing the two are wearing, but at least Tom has enough presence of mind to keep his muttering discreet.

"Ari," he names her.

_I have found someone to care for_.

* * *

**Note: "Ari" in the Yoruba language means "I have found someone to care for" - at least, according to my research. "Ari" has many different meanings to choose from, actually, but I thought that obscure one suited Tom most. And Yorubaland was a British colony at about this time, so I figured a well-read boy like him would have some sort of knowledge about or interest in such far-off places.**

**Apologies to anyone who actually speaks the language or is of the ethnic descent. My information comes, as usual, from the internet.**

**~ TheAlabasterPhoenyx**


	6. Chapter 5

Tom Riddle Sr. takes one look at Ari and sends his son to his room without supper.

The boy grins in the silence of his room and strokes his snake's scales. He may have wanted to buy the serpent for his own sake, and for hers, but it is certainly an added bonus that he can irritate his father (safely) by the action.

"_How much do you know about wizards, Ari?"_

"_Not much, master, although I do know that you are the only one I have met who could understand me when I speak."_

He decides he likes the title his pet has given him. It reminds him of his father, but in a way that makes everything so much better – like his father gone, or never hurting him again, or apologizing to his mother and buying her an entire lemon cake.

His fingers find his wand, and the boy is amazed at how easily the magic flows through him now that he has a channeling agent for it – before, it had been a wash of energy, of power, flowing through him, ebbing and surging like the tide, and it had required such self-control to corral it into a desired effect.

He lights his room effortlessly, like sunshine, not candlelight, and pulls out one of his new books.

Tom will be up here for a while, so he might as well start to catch up on everything his mother did not tell him. He is glad she let him buy one or two (or seven) extra books at the shop, because otherwise the boy would have felt rather unprepared entering an entirely new world.

Visiting the alley earlier today had truly impressed upon the boy how different the Wizarding World would be.

"_Magic Throughout History, _a compendium by Quintus Mercer. _To those who quest for knowledge, let it be known . . ."_

* * *

**Note: **_**A History of Magic**_** was written by Bathilda Bagshot and published in 1947 for the first time. Therefore, as Tom attends Hogwarts in 1937, he could not have used her book for History of Magic class.**

**~ TheAlabasterPhoenyx**

**Thank you for favoriting, following, and reviewing!**


	7. Chapter 6

The red train gleams in the sunlight, and Tom feels just a bit overwhelmed.

He walks close to his mother as they weave their way down the station platform, silently observing the chaos around them. Hundreds of families say their goodbyes, shouting last-minute instructions and teary reminders as children board the scarlet Hogwarts Express. Some wear normal clothing (Muggle clothing, he reminds himself), but most are in wizarding garb, making Tom glad he listened to his mother's advice and changed into his robes in the station lavatory.

It is strange, seeing his mother dressed like the women in his books – dress, robe and all, even a wand tucked into her sleeve, which he could have sworn he had never seen before in his life. She looks a bit out of place here (she belongs in the parlor, or the drawing room, sipping tea and reading simple poetry), but he considers the even weirder thought that this is her world more than it is his.

She told him she did not attend Hogwarts, and neither did her brother, though her mother did – so she told him everything she remembered from those tales. Tom listened carefully to it all, noting it in his mind beside everything he had read, for further reference, and made sure that he would remember to ask about her brother later.

They step past a family saying its goodbyes to a small child (a first year probably, like Tom, though he has always been somewhat tall for his age), and Tom must avert his eyes at the sight of the girl's father kneeling before her and taking her hands, likely speaking earnestly to her words of encouragement, perhaps admonishment.

Tom's own father had gone to work as usual that morning, nodding cursorily to his wife and his son as he left. The only mark that he even remembered what day today was – a small tic in his handsome jaw.

Something vindictive in the boy wishes that he had worn his robes out of the house, too, just to see the look on his father's face.

He glances at his mother, though, and knows that he will never do anything to hurt her. And antagonizing Tom Riddle Sr. has always been sure to hurt Merope Riddle, whether emotionally or physically.

Tom bows slightly to his mother when he says his farewells, and she presses her lips together in a tight smile because she dare not hug him in a public place like this.

Sometimes he and his father are too much alike, it seems.

Her son smiles back at her, softly.

"I shall be fine, mother," and how could she doubt him, her darling boy?

"Besides," he laughs, lightly, only she knows that it is anything but light-hearted, "whatever happens, this is an adventure. We love adventures, Ari and I."

He turns and boards the train, leaving his mother to wonder when her boy started to pretend to be young for her sake.


	8. Chapter 7

Tom sits quietly in the compartment with two other children – a witch and a wizard – waiting for the train to move. A second witch enters just as they begin to depart.

He keeps his eyes out the window, observing the landscape like it is the first time he has seen such things, but his senses are primed for every movement of the companions in his proximity.

"So, what are your names?" One of the girls asks, a waver in her voice the only betrayal of her nerves, the rest covered by rather unpleasant bravado. Tom turns his head silently to look at her, and he is rather gratified to find her eye contact waver and flee to rest on the other witch.

"Margot," responds the object of her attention, voice quiet but stronger than the first's. "Margot Droope."

The boy snorts, and Tom cannot help but shift his gaze from the first girl to her seat companion. He is rather unimpressed at a person who would laugh at such a silly thing. There must be something about his dark-eyed gaze, but the boy quickly clears his throat and volunteers his own name.

"Alphard Black." His tone is supercilious, like he expects the whole world to know who he is. "and my sister, Walburga." She rolls her eyes, like she did not ask the question for her own _brother _to answer.

The three turn expectant eyes to the fourth in their compartment, and Tom wishes for all the world that he does not have to deal with people this early in his 'adventure.' He would much rather be learning the rest of that poem from Ari than speaking with these vapid eleven-year-olds.

Though, to be fair, he is still eleven as well.

"Tom Riddle," he says, and there is something silken about the way the name is offered, like chocolate – or blood.

He is allowed almost an hour of peace until the girl – Walburga – breaks the silence once more.

"I don't seem to recall a 'Riddle' on the Pureblood Registry." Her voice is thoughtful, but Tom has spent enough time with his Muggle cousins (second-cousins, really, but it was never that important) to recognize barely-disguised curiosity – the kind that springs from contempt and acid, not true academic desire.

It is quite funny, actually. For his cousins, the issue was his magic (not that they knew what it was, of course). For these purebloods, the issue is his cousins.

His lips twist into a smile, the kind that he knows makes him seem more like a dragon than a boy, and Walburga's face is startled (frightened) for a moment before his expression morphs into one of innocence. She is left wondering if she imagined the malice – sometime later, she realizes that she must have.

The boy across from her is the picture of innocent happiness. His eyes shine with joy – a hint of sadness, perhaps? – and his smile is one that would warm even the coldest of hearts.

"Well, Walburga – or Miss Black? I'm not sure, I'm somewhat new to this. The thing is that my mother – well, she's a witch, you see, but my father. He never, well, he never liked me. I thought – well, it doesn't really matter. But now, my mum. I wasn't supposed to see it, not at all, I don't think, but there was this picture that always really bothered my father, and I could never figure out why, because I just thought it was my uncle or something. But -" As the other three listen, ever more sympathetically, to the masterful tale, the half-blood spins a tale of intrigue and misfortune leading to one inevitable conclusion – Riddle may not be a pureblood name, but it does not mean he is not the most pureblooded wizard alive.

In fact, by the end of the train ride, both Blacks _and_ the other witch are convinced, somehow, that Tom Riddle is not only the most charismatic individual in Hogwarts, but also the most unfortunate, and probably the direct descendant of some great sorcerer as well. (Alphard thinks it is Slytherin, but he does not want to share his suspicion with anyone in case he turns out wrong)

The problem with Tom Riddle is not, as his father thinks, his magic, nor is it, as his mother thinks, his father – but something unique and all his own, something that looks rather like a dragon before morphing into a boy.


	9. Chapter 8

**Apologies for the hiatus - I found an amazing fanfiction and it held me hostage for five days and one hundred forty-three chapters.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

From all that he has read, Tom is not surprised when the Sorting Hat places him in Slytherin. In fact, he would have been rather more surprised if it had considered putting him anywhere else. His mother had, of course, told him all about his esteemed heritage.

He does not quite know how she managed it, but Merope Riddle somehow conveyed the superiority of his blood to her son without disparaging Muggles overtly – considering she had, in fact, married one.

Tom does not find it hard to believe in wizard supremacy (just look at his father, after all).

No, he is not surprised that the Hat places him in Slytherin.

He is more surprised about how long it took to make the decision. For everyone else – for the Black siblings, even – it had deliberated for a few seconds before shouting its choice.

But for Tom, the Hat had barely touched his head before it shrieked SLYTHERIN, as if it did not wish to even see itself near him for one moment longer than necessary.

Strange, because everyone else at the table seemed to want to cuddle up to him almost immediately.

Not many people fit so perfectly in a house that the Sorting Hat wastes no time with deliberation, it is whispered.

It seems to Tom that Walburga wasted no time in sharing his tale with the rest of the table – and suddenly, the strange perhaps-Muggleborn first year is no more than a rather handsome, mysterious probably-pureblood with a smile like a newborn unicorn and eyes that could give Rex Lestrange a run for his money.

Tom Riddle enjoys the feeling of being more important (not less so) than previous estimation.

He knows it will not last.


	10. Chapter 9

Despite the hindrances of his Muggle upbringing, it is clear that Tom Riddle outshines his classmates in every subject by the end of the second month.

His status among Slytherins has died down since the Opening Feast, and Tom finds that he rather does not mind. He prefers being alone, anyway.

And since he, a lowly creature raised by Muggles (no matter how pure his blood _probably _is), manages to outdo even the most pure of wizards in terms of magical talent, not many are willing to sacrifice their pride for the sake of his company.

It is not that they disbelieve his story – no, in fact, his brilliance lends credence rather than detracts from his pure blood – but instead that his housemates would prefer to spend time with those they can look down upon (at least in the privacy of their own minds) than those they can learn from.

Though let it not be said that Slytherins do not give credit where it is due.

More than one older-year student has found himself approaching the strange quiet first-year student for help with an assignment, or discussing interesting episodes involving said boy.

Tom amuses himself by cataloguing the rumors he hears about himself – his favorite is that his real father is Transfiguration Professor Dumbledore himself, which is why he is so talented at magic. (it is a source of both shame and satisfaction that his true father is nothing but a filthy Muggle)

Professor Slughorn of Potions has singled out Mister Riddle as his favorite first-year already, much to the consternation of both Blacks. His classmates are not the only ones to see that Tom is special, despite whatever background he may or may not have.

It is only Professor Dumbledore who does not take Tom Riddle at face value.

He is not sure whether it should worry him or comfort him that someone is smart enough to see him for himself, not for the mask he presents.

Sometimes he thinks that maybe Dumbledore _would _have made a better father than Tom Riddle Sr.

* * *

**I've been gone a long time, sorry about that. I hope that I can post every week from now on. Thank you to everyone who has continued to favorite and follow in my absence!**


	11. Chapter 10

"Mister Riddle, please demonstrate the proper wand technique to the class, if you'd be so kind."

Tom feels a swell of pride as he catches on right away, despite having been caught staring out the window for the third time that class period. Let it not be said that Tom Riddle was startled by a _teacher_, of all things.

Professor Dumbledore looks at his student like he is not fooled, but he lets the behavior slide and continues with his lesson.

Tom tries to pay more attention, he really does, but when that blasted letter is burning a hole in his trousers pocket, there is no way he can give his full focus to a simple matchstick-into-a-needle transfiguration.

After only twenty more minutes of suffering, finally class is over and Tom is free to leave – he packs his things mechanically, mind still on that piece of stationary and ink in his pocket.

"Mister Riddle, please stay behind. I would like a word with you."

The professor's voice is not angry or even demanding, but Tom feels a surge of irritation in his chest at the unexpected (not really) demand. He truly wished to return to his dorm room and counsel with Ari about how to proceed.

"Yes, Professor?" He is unfailingly polite, mask firmly in place.

"Please, sit." The wizard conjures a chair before his desk, and the first-year seats himself before watching his Transfiguration professor with dark eyes. The – _something _in them that peeks out and frightens the girls seems to be trying to manifest itself, but Tom stomps on it and twists it back into its little safe box, locking it with a smile and a blank fog.

He waits patiently, attentively, and Dumbledore takes a moment to admire the singleminded dedication the boy shows in keeping his persona.

"Mister Riddle, I could not help but notice you were a bit – _distracted _today in class." Dumbledore's cornflower blue eyes twinkle, and he offers the student a piece of candy. Tom recognizes it as a Muggle lemon drop, the kind he used to steal from the street children when he was younger and fed up with his father.

Needless to say, the boy refuses.

"I apologize, Professor. It will not happen again." He makes a move to stand, but Dumbledore motions for him to stay where he is.

"I understand you have been having trouble at home?"

Tom stills, and for a moment the older wizard is reminded forcefully of a striking cobra.

For just a split second, the wizard who had dabbled in his own darkness and fought the darkness of others, travelled farther toward true greatness than anyone in the last few centuries and returned still joyful, he felt true fear at the potential glimpsed in this small, eleven-year-old boy.

It was something in the eyes, he would later muse. He would not consider, not even in his deepest thinking, the striking resemblance between this young boy and another he knew, long ago.

"No, sir. My family is fine, sir." And then that split second is gone, and Tom is just a student again, sitting in a comfortable chair before his professor's desk.

Dumbledore smiles gently at Tom.

"You can tell me, Tom. I promise, I will keep your secrets."

Something stirs in the boy's expression, but he tamps it down with a vengeance and Dumbledore cannot decipher what it was.

"Thank you, sir. I will remember that." Tom Riddle looks for all the world like a proper student, attentive and adoring, wide-eyed and innocent. _Intelligent_, Dumbledore muses. But he is not in the habit of performing Legilimency on first-years, no matter how concerningly dark their eyes are as they daydream in class, so he can do nothing more but smile gently at the boy and shoo him off to his common room.


	12. Chapter 11

Tom mulls over the Transfiguration Master's concern as he stares at the letter in his hand.

No one has ever asked after Tom's health before, not even his own mother (he ignores the fact that she knows him too well to bother asking), and he finds that it is not an altogether pleasant feeling. It makes him feel chastised, like he isn't doing enough to take care of himself.

"_I must do better, then, Ari,_" he whispers softly to his familiar, sparing her a glance before turning his eyes back to the stationary. She has grown since he first bought her, now long enough to span the length of his forearm, from fingertip to elbow. She hisses something soothing back at him, and he flicks the paper onto the floor before him, lighting it on fire with a twitch of his wand.

Alphard watches his roommate with wary eyes, but the blue flames do nothing but char the paper into ashes. No mark is left on the stone below, and not for the first time the pureblood stands in awe of his Muggle-raised acquaintance.

He catches only a glimpse of the blocky writing, and the words make no sense to him out of context. With a shrug, he turns back to his trunk to continue packing for the holidays.

_Your father is happy, I know, he just does not know how to show it – _something here, too burnt already to make out – _new family – _more burning – _until the summer._

Tom, aware that his housemate had been looking over his shoulder at the burning letter, curls the edge of his mouth into a smirk as he watches it turn to ash.


	13. Chapter 12

The dungeons are silent.

Tom is the only one left in the common room – the only one left in the entire Slytherin house, barring a few fifth years whose parents are travelling to France (last-minute changes from Spain, he heard) and the scattering of students with less-than-pure blood. Everyone else has gone back home for the holidays, back to their prestigious pureblooded families to celebrate another Yuletide.

He does not think about the Christmas at his own home – tree lit up with candles and covered all over with peppermint and garlands, house smelling like cinnamon, Mother happy and Father smiling as their little boy unwraps presents on the rug – because he knows it is not tangible, not feasible, not anymore. Never again will something like that happen; especially not this year.

This year, Mother will placate and Father will growl, and the house might be silent but for a few crashes as Tom Riddle Sr. takes his frustration out on something other than his pregnant wife.

The first-year boy sits before the fire in his common room, ears ringing with silence, fingers twisted around a viper and wand twitching in the air as he practices his spellwork.

_TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE_, over and over again, burning into the air before his wand.

It does not last for more than a few seconds, but with every iteration the script lives just a moment longer until by the hundredth – thousandth? Ten-thousandth? – his name floats jagged and flowing in empty space like a brand for a full minute after he exits the common room for New Year's Eve dinner.

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**Note: The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) would have affected vacation plans, even for British purebloods.**


	14. Chapter 13

Alphard often wonders what his housemate is thinking of, when his eyes get so dark you could drown in them. He thinks it might be strange, were it anyone else other than Tom Riddle, to follow up such a look with the brightest, most innocently alluring smile.

He does not know anyone else who smiles like that, and maybe that is why he always finds himself smiling back, Slytherin or no. There is something about this boy that makes almost everyone – even his cousin-once-removed Charis Black, sixth-year extraordinaire – gravitate towards him.

Like right now, as Alphard watches Riddle quietly explain the fourth-year Arithmancy homework to Rex Lestrange (they both ignore the fact that the older boy is getting the highest marks in the class without his help). He grew up a pure-blood, so of course Alphard recognizes the interaction for what it is – a test – but he is not sure that his roommate does.

It is why he began to watch him so carefully in the first place (along with the surreptitious rest of the Common Room), and it is why he caught the darkness of the boy's eyes for just a moment before the murky-blooded first-year began to scratch out calculations on a sheet of parchment.

Lestrange sees the darkness, too.

It is why, three nights later, he makes a point to sit with the younger boy in the Common Room after dinner, sparking a chain reaction of attention. The next day, Tom Riddle finds himself in the midst of a group of highest purebloods – Ivan Dolohov, Alan Rosier, Eovis Mulciber, among others – all with the same predatory look in their eyes, and he knows that he has just been marked.

"Riddle, I heard you were snooping around in the Restricted Section over holidays," Rosier drawls, eyes sweeping over the young wizard's face with an unpleasant glint. He cannot tell if it is because of his innocent beauty (Rosier will never win any contest for pleasing countenance) or because of the rumors of his blood. Perhaps both, if the other boys' expressions are anything to go by.

"How is it your concern?" The cool detachment in his voice contrasts harshly with his open face, and a spark of something like approval lights in Dolohov's eye.

Rosier pulls his wand, eyes narrowed in hair-trigger hate, and Riddle does nothing but close his book with a sigh and finger his own wand under the table, debating the benefits of fighting back.

In the end, the eleven-year-old goes to bed with a shooting pain through his left leg, courtesy of the fourth-year, but there is the sort of look on his face that twists his young features into something ugly.

Alphard stays quiet in his bed when he sees Riddle enter the room, fear trickling down his spine at the expression he wears.

He lies awake for several hours, long enough to hear a harsh hissing sound and, later, a soft scratching against the floor, and then, after the sounds have stopped, the cherubic laugh of a child (the sort that enjoys poking the house-elves with live matches, or pulling the wings from fairy-lights at Yule).

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**Thanks for reading! Leave a comment below, please.**

**~ TheAlabasterPhoenyx**


	15. Chapter 14

Somehow, the entire Slytherin house knows it was Tom Riddle who caused Alan Rosier's agonized shrieking that night, though they never say it aloud. It is there in the looks and the shifting of bodies away from his presence and the appraisal, and his expression never changes for a moment.

(No one dares mention the Dark jinx cast upon the defenseless first-year, and no one uses it for the rest of the month – on anyone.)

Rex Lestrange converses with the boy every few days, as do some of the older-lineage Purebloods (even Rosier, with a new look of respect-tempered hatred), but Tom is once again on the path to solitude, if a higher solitude than before.

Professor Dumbledore, of course, notices the new wariness of the Slytherin house toward the bright boy, and his heart sinks in his chest at the spark of something entirely too familiar in his favorite first-year student's eyes.

He can never confirm anything from talking to the boy, of course, but even he has heard about Alan's misfortune.

As for Tom himself, he finds that he cares for this attention more than any other kind – the respect-tempered (fear-tempered) kind that makes him feel like he is finally someone important.

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**Thank you to all my faithful readers! Don't forget to review, please.**

**~ TheAlabasterPhoenyx**


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